"If Barbara hasn't come back we may see someone else we know. Either we are especially early at Hamilton this year, or else everybody else is late. No one's home! Boo, hoo!" Jerry burst into a dismal wail.

"I refuse to go another step until you stop that awful noise," balked Muriel. "We all feel _very_ sad, Jeremiah, over the absence of our various friends, but we try to control our sorrow. Try and do likewise."

"It is ice cream we will be after buying you at the nice Italian man's, if you will stop roaring," wheedled Leila, adopting a decided brogue.

"I believe the rules of Hamilton forbid unseemly noise on the campus."

Lucy fixed a severe eye on Jerry.

Jesting in this fashion the quintette had again taken up their walk, this time headed for Acasia House.

"We started out too early to make our calls," commented Marjorie. "The Acasia House girls will probably be at dinner. It is only half-past six now."

"We'll only stop a few minutes there. By the time we have walked that far we may be hungry enough for a bang-up dinner at Baretti's," Jerry expressed this hope. "Nothing like hiking around the campus by way of celebrating our return to the knowledge shop."

Acasia House, however, did not yield the winsome presence of Barbara Severn. "Not back yet," was their second disappointment that evening. As Marjorie had surmised, such of the students who had returned were at dinner. The callers mounted the front steps to a deserted veranda. More, it was a maid, who, in answer to Marjorie's ringing of the doorbell, furnished the information regarding the still absent Barbara.

"Balked all around!" Jerry dramatically struck her hand to her forehead as the party descended the steps. They had decided not to try getting acquainted with the freshmen of Acasia House that evening. They preferred waiting for Barbara's return.

"Grant Giuseppe hasn't shut up shop and gone on a vacation," grumbled Leila. "'Tis my Irish bones that ache from so much weary wandering.

"Oh, it's up the hill I had gone me fast, Till my feet were stoned and sore; And down the dale I hurried last To find but the bolted door."

She had broken into one of the curious wailing Celtic chants which were the girls' delight.

"Do sing the rest of it, Leila," begged Muriel, as the Irish girl stopped laughingly after the fourth line.

"Not now, I should only wail you to tears," she declared.

"Truly, Leila, I don't know a Hamilton girl I would have missed so much as you," Marjorie said convincingly, pa.s.sing her arm across Leila's shoulders. "I am _so_ glad you came back!"

"I'm thinking I had fine sense," solemnly agreed Leila. "And I shall be treating you all at Giuseppe's this evening to celebrate my own smartness."

Thus adroitly she had taken the dinner upon herself. It was usually a matter for animated discussion as to which one of them should stand treat. A chorus of dissent arose as it was, but her further wily and broad Irish reminder, "Will yez be quiet? Think af me dignity as a P.

G!" won her the privilege.

Signor Baretti's welcome of his favorite patrons was given with true Latin sincerity. He had not forgotten the serenading party of the previous year and asked anxiously for Phyllis and her orchestra.

"They come back this year, those who play and sing for me so nice?" he queried. "Many are the graduates each June. Then I don't see more.

Always I know those-what you call the fraish-fraish-mens. Only these are not the mens at all, but the girls. Why you call these-mens?"

The Italian's evident puzzlement over this point evoked amused laughter in which he good-naturedly joined. He showed childish gratification, however, at Marjorie's simple explanation of the term.

"Never before have I understand," he confessed. "Now I must ask something more. You know those girls I have not like who come here?

Every one know, I don't like." He made a sweeping gesture. "They don't come here for, oh, long time before college close. Somebody say they are made to go away because they don't do well. You tell me. That is the truth?"

For a moment no one spoke. The blunt innocence of the inquiry was not to be doubted, however. The odd little proprietor's question must be answered.

"They were expelled from college, Signor Baretti," Marjorie made grave reply. "You heard the truth."

"That mean, they can't come back more?" persisted the Italian.

"Yes." Again it was Marjorie who answered him.

"Ah-h-h!" The e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n contained a note of triumph. "So I think. But one, the one these girls I _most_ don't like she walk in this place one day las' week. This day she is friendly; never before. She say she come back early. I know better." He placed his finger to his eye, a significant Latin gesture, meaning that he was not to be deceived. "She think I don't know. This one is Miss Car-rins."

CHAPTER V-JUST FRESHIES

The Italian's announcement was received by his hearers with varying degrees of surprise. His sole object in inquiring as he had regarding the Sans appeared to be a desire to prove his own surmises as correct.

Satisfied on this point, he hospitably insisted on taking their dinner order himself, and trotted kitchenward to look after it.

"Humph!" Jerry gave vent to her favorite e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n the instant the proprietor of the restaurant had left them. "Now what do you suppose she is doing in this part of the world?"

"Ask me something easier." Leila's dark brows lifted themselves. "She may be visiting someone in the town of Hamilton."

"I should think she would hate to come back here after what happened,"

commented Muriel. "The idea of her telling Signor Baretti she had come back early to college. I suppose she thought he wouldn't know that she had been expelled."

"'Be sure your sin will find you out,'" quoted Lucy with a touch of satiric humor. "It's a moral warning to behave, isn't it? News of disgrace travels fast and wide."

"Yes, Luciferous, it does. I trust that you will ever walk in the path of rect.i.tude. Let this deplorable instance be a lesson to you."

Muriel had promptly taken advantage of Lucy's remarks. Her mischievous features set in austerity she managed to keep them thus for at least two seconds. Then she burst into a ripple of laughter.

"Don't lose any sleep over me," was Lucy's independent retort. "Just apply some of that wonderful advice to yourself."

"I will, if I ever get to where I feel I need it," beamingly a.s.sured Muriel.

Thus the subject of Leslie Cairns' re-appearance at Baretti's was pa.s.sed over without further comment. Nor was it renewed again that evening.

Before they left Baretti's they were treated to a real surprise. Engaged in eating the delectable dinner they had ordered, none of the five saw two laughing faces peering in at them from the main entrance of the inn.

Two pairs of slippered feet stole noiselessly along the broad aisle between the tables.

Looking up from her Waldorf salad, Jerry gave a sudden cry that was in the nature of a subdued war whoop of pure joy.

"Can you beat it!" she shrieked jubilantly, standing up and waving her salad fork. "The wanderers have returned!"

Her shout of welcome was quickly taken up by the others. Leila sprang from her chair and made one dive toward a diminutive young woman in a pongee traveling coat and white sports hat. The Lookouts were equally eager to claim their own. She happened to be Veronica Lynne.

For an instant the hitherto quiet room was filled with the rising treble of girl voices. They had been entirely alone in the restaurant since their entrance save for Signor Baretti and the waitresses.

"Our Midget-and see the cunningness of her in her long coat! Does she not look many inches taller?" teased Leila, holding Vera at arms' length and then re-embracing her.

"I'm not even half an inch taller, you old Irish flatterer," Vera declared as Leila released her to greet Ronny. "Oh, girls, it is fine to see you all again." Vera clasped her little hands in her own inimitable fashion.

"It's wonderful to have both of you popping in on us at once." Marjorie was holding Ronny's hands in her own. "How did you both happen to arrive here together? It must have been sheer luck."